A: My condolences for your loss. At a time like this, the last thing you should have to worry about is a refund. Unfortunately, Spirit is making you worry by not acknowledging your request.

Although the airline doesn't make any promises in about refunding tickets to deceased passengers in its terms and conditions, which you can read on its site (www.spirit.com/content/documents/en-us/general—terms—and—conditions.pdf), a representative did imply that you would receive the $153 back for your husband's ticket. That's in line with most airline policies, which, although they are informal, generally refund tickets to the families of dead passengers.

The real question is: What's taking Spirit so long? And is there anything you might do to move the process along faster?

Ticket refunds should happen instantly, but they don't. Spirit is required to forward a credit to your card company within seven business days after receiving a complete refund application, according to the Department of Transportation. But the credit may take a month or two to appear on your statement. You were only three weeks into that process when you contacted me.

I'm not going to be the one who tells you to be patient at a difficult time like this. If I were running Spirit, you would have your money by now, and an apology as well. But I'm just a consumer advocate.

You could have tried to escalate the process by appealing to an executive at Spirit. I list the names, numbers and email addresses of Spirit's customer-service managers on my advocacy site: http://elliott.org/company-contacts/spirit-airlines/.

While it's true that Spirit doesn't have the best customer-service reputation, this is one of those cases when it appears to have done nothing negligent. Perhaps the only fault I can find is that a representative left you with the impression that you'd have the refund sooner.

I contacted Spirit on your behalf, and it refunded your late husband's $153, as it promised it would.

Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine and author of “How to Be the World's Smartest Traveler.” You can read more travel tips on his blog, www.elliott.org, or email him at chris@elliott.org.